By Samuel Efoua Mbozo’o/ PHD
Dean of the Faculty of Letters and Social
Sciences in
The University of Douala-Cameroon
Abstract:
In 1472, a Portuguese navigator, Fernão do poo,
arrives in the bay of Biafra and discovers the Island which, for a long period
carried his name and became later a Spanish colony before becoming today, the Republic
of Equatorial Guinea. It was still him who discovered the same year the mount
Cameroon and the neighboring coastal region. In 1472, The Portuguese discovered
and went up the Wouri estuary. They were surprised to see shrimp pullulating.
They called that river “Rio dos Camaroes”, meaning shrimp river. From
“Camaroes” came the name Cameroon. Started in the 15th century,
slave trade, shameful traffic which lasted for 400 years. It took more
importance after America’s discovery. Started by the Spanish, it was continued
by other Europeans. The coast of what later became Cameroon was not spare. The
present article intends then to present on the first part the arrival of
Portuguese on the Cameroon’s coast; on the second part it examines the progress
of trafficking in Cameroon. Finally, it examines consequences of trafficking and
its abolition in Cameroon.
Key words:
slave trade, slavery, transatlantic trade, triangular trade.
I.
Portuguese
on Cameroon’s Coast: the “Rio dos Camaroes”.
1.1.The region where the Portuguese
landed.
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